The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
